Merida,Yucatan birding tours
Merida in the Yucatan State is a great city, with beautiful colonial architecture and cultural and gastronomic attractions. From there we can go birding to very good spots in search of the endemics and other very good birds!
Here we describe different birding days from Merida, but there are other great spots that we can visit departing from there.
Merida
This tour is the best option for a half day departing Merida. We'll pick you up half an hour before sunrise and after a short drive, we'll arrive at our first spot: Misnebalam road and hacienda. This lowland forest area is very good for many endemic and semi endemic birds, including the Yucatan Jay, Yucatan Flycatcher, Yucatan Gnatcatcher, Yucatan Woodpecker, Gray-throated Chat, Black-throated Bobwhite. With luck, we might even spot a Lesser Roadrunner or Ocellated Turkey. The area is also great for finding raptors, swallows, seedeaters, and wrens. In just a couple of hours, we can see around 40 species!
We will continue on the highway to Progreso until we reach an area with a great mix of vegetation, including coastal sand dunes, mangroves, and shrubs. Here we'll find a different set of birds, including American Flamingos, Clapper Rail, Reddish Egret, and a variety of other egrets and herons. We might also spot American Pygmy, Belted, and Green Kingfishers. Sandpipers, Plovers, and other birds inhabit the mangroves. Just next to the mangroves, we can find the endemic Yucatan Wren.
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Extend this half-day tour to a full-day! After lunch at 11 am, we'll continue our birding journey along the coast, looking for birds like the Zenaida Dove, shorebirds, and other specialties of the mangroves. In the afternoon, we'll visit a park in Merida to see the Limpkin, Snail Kite, and other birds attracted to the flowers and fruits, such as the Yellow-winged Tanager. These extra hours can give us 15-20 species more for the day. We'll return you to your hotel around 5 pm.
Pick up time: 40 minutes before sunrise
Drop off time: Around noon
Number of birds we can see in the morning: 60 - 70 species
Vegetation types visited: Lowland forest, coastal sand dune, mangroves, open grasslands.
Tour style: Ideal for birders and photographers, we can adjust the time to spend in each place. Short walks near the car.
Uxmal
We will start this tour early in the morning to reach the birding area by sunrise. Uxmal is part of the Puuc Route of the Mayan ancient ruins region of the Yucatan Peninsula. This area is characterized by humid low forests with some grassland and wetlands, making it a good place for the Yellow-lored Parrot, Yucatan Jay, Yucatan Woodpecker, Gray-throated Chat, Yucatan Flycatcher, Yellow Billed Cacique, White-bellied Wren, and other good birds like Long-billed Gnat Wren or Red-throated Ant Tanager. There is a road right next to the archeological site perfect for this species. Sometimes Hook-billed Kite is around and Lesson’s Motmot and Turquoise Browed Motmot are too.
Optional activity: Uxmal Archaeological site
While the ruins themselves offer less bird diversity than the surrounding area, we can have great views of Cliff Swallows that live inside the buildings. We might also spot a Turquoise-browed Motmot, Yucatan Woodpecker, or other birds perched just a few meters away. Sometimes there can be seen some birds of prey like the Gray-headed Kite or the Great Horned Owl perching in the ruins. If you're interested in learning more about Mayan history and appreciating the unique Puuc-style architecture with its detailed carvings, we recommend visiting the archaeological site of Uxmal.
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Pick-up time: 60 minutes before sunrise
Drop-off time: Around noon
Number of birds we can see in the morning: 60 - 70 species
Vegetation types visited: Lowland forest, open grasslands, and wetlands.
Tour style: Ideal for birders and photographers, we can adjust the time to spend in each place. Short walks near the car. It is optional to go to the Archeological park.
If you decide not to visit the archaeological site, we can spend some time in the gardens of the Uxmal resort which has flowering plants and water fountains which attract lots of birds. Acuaparque, a park back in Merida, is also a good place to finish this birding day. There are often good chances of the Limpking, Snail Kite, Least Greabe, and Tanagers.
Valladolid: Xocen and Chankom
We will start this tour early in the morning to reach the birding area by sunrise. Uxmal is part of the Puuc Route of the Mayan ancient ruins region of the Yucatan Peninsula. This area is characterized by humid low forests with some grassland and wetlands, making it a good place for the Yellow-lored Parrot, Yucatan Jay, Yucatan Woodpecker, Gray-throated Chat, Yucatan Flycatcher, Yellow Billed Cacique, White-bellied Wren, and other good birds like Long-billed Gnat Wren or Red-throated Ant Tanager. There is a road right next to the archeological site perfect for this species. Sometimes Hook-billed Kite is around and Lesson’s Motmot and Turquoise Browed Motmot are too.
Optional activity: Uxmal Archaeological site
While the ruins themselves offer less bird diversity than the surrounding area, we can have great views of Cliff Swallows that live inside the buildings. We might also spot a Turquoise-browed Motmot, Yucatan Woodpecker, or other birds perched just a few meters away. Sometimes there can be seen some birds of prey like the Gray-headed Kite or the Great Horned Owl perching in the ruins. If you're interested in learning more about Mayan history and appreciating the unique Puuc-style architecture with its detailed carvings, we recommend visiting the archaeological site of Uxmal.
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Pick-up time: 60 minutes before sunrise
Drop-off time: Around noon
Number of birds we can see in the morning: 60 - 70 species
Vegetation types visited: Lowland forest, open grasslands, and wetlands.
Tour style: Ideal for birders and photographers, we can adjust the time to spend in each place. Short walks near the car. It is optional to go to the Archeological park.
If you decide not to visit the archaeological site, we can spend some time in the gardens of the Uxmal resort which has flowering plants and water fountains which attract lots of birds. Acuaparque, a park back in Merida, is also a good place to finish this birding day. There are often good chances of the Limpking, Snail Kite, Least Greabe, and Tanagers.
Río Lagartos
The Ría Lagartos Natural Park is located on the northern coast of Yucatán. Its habitat contains coastal dunes, mangroves, tulares, reedbeds, grasslands, low deciduous forests, and petenes; habitat for the endemic Mexican Sheartail, Orange Oriole and Yucatan Wren. In the center, where there are concentrations of salt water and fresh water, we will take a boat tour in the mangrove ría to search for the American Flamingo, Mangrove Warbler, Clapper Rail, several species of herons, egrets, terns, shorebirds and more.
Considering that Rio Lagartos is less than 3 3-hour drive away from Merida, we recommend starting birding before sunrise or arranging accommodation to stay the night before to have chances of the Yucatan Nightjar, a bird difficult to see in other places.
After the boat tour, we will continue to a site with a particular habitat, home of restricted-range birds like the Mexican Sheartail, the Yucatan Wren, the Black-throated Bobwhite, the Zenaida Dove, the Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture, and the Lesser Roadrunner. This area represents the vegetation of Ria Lagartos reserve, with its mangrove forest and coastal dune vegetation.
Pick-up time: In case you spend the night in Lagartos, we will pick you up a few minutes before sunrise. Otherwise, if coming from Merida, it's advisable to go at least 2 hours before the sun rises.
Drop-off time: Afternoon
Number of birds we can see in the morning: 60 - 70 species
Vegetation types visited: Lowland forest, coastal sand dune, and mangroves.
Tour style: Boat trip and short walks near the car.
Celestun
Celestun is a Biosphere Reserve located on the west coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. This is one of the most popular birding destinations for a single day departing from Merida. The mix of habitats and landscapes in the Celestun area promotes a great diversity of birds. Its mangrove ria is full of herons, cormorants, gulls, terns and of course the charismatic American Flamingo, we will explore this in a boat tour. Also, there is a lowland forest area and coastal dune where we can find other Yucatan Peninsula endemics and specialties.
We will depart from Merida one hour before sunrise. The first stop is great for many birds that aren't usually seen around Celestun town or the mangrove area. It is a road surrounded by a mix of habitats of grassland, secondary forest, and lowland forest with open areas, making it a place for several forest birds like the endemic Yucatan Jay, Yucatan Woodpecker, and the Yucatan Flycatcher, and the Orange Oriole; there are also great chances to see the Canivet's Emerald, the Crested Caracara, the Scrub Euphonia, and more.
We will then visit Celestun Town's surroundings. The main habitat of this area is coastal sand dune vegetation, with a mix of shrubs, agaves, cactus, and mangroves. This is the habitat of the endemic Yucatan Wren, Yucatan Sheartail, and the Yucatan Gnatcatcher but we have chances to find other species from this type of habitat.
Pick-up time: 40 minutes before sunrise
Drop-off time: Around noon
Number of birds we can see in the morning: 60 - 70 species
Vegetation types visited: Lowland forest, coastal sand dune, mangroves.
Tour style: Ideal for birders and photographers, we can adjust the time to spend in each place. Short walks near the car and a boat trip.
​Finally, we will take a boat trip from the beach. We will sail along the coast searching for shorebirds, gulls, and other birds from the sea, and then we will enter the mangrove ria to search the Flamingos, several species of egrets, and other birds that live in the mangrove vegetation. Some species possible to see from the boat are: the Reddish Egret, the Boat-billed Heron, the Least Tern, the Caspian Tern, the American Oystercatcher, the Belted, Green and American Pygmy Kingfishers, the Common Black Hawk, the Osprey, the Roseate Spoonbill, the American Flamingo, etc.